Page 3070 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2012
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Some recall being drugged by their own parents and waking up to find that they were in a car, on their way to a maternity home in another town or another state, where they would spend their pregnancy and confinement cut off from contact with everything and everyone that they knew.
Some tell how they were required, while at these maternity homes, to use false names—names that were then used on their baby’s birth certificate.
Women told of being sedated during childbirth, or of having pillows or blankets arranged so they would never catch sight of their babies.
Women were told, untruthfully, that their babies were dead.
There are tales of coercion and control, of ostracism, of women being tricked into signing away their babies, of bullying and emotional blackmail, of forged signatures, even of physical violence against women who resisted having their babies taken.
And then, for decades, until now, there has been the conspiracy of silence.
The recorded history of the various forms of forced adoption, over such a long period and often across state borders, is very patchy. There is a legacy of denial and concealment of these practices in Australian society, which has only served to further de-legitimise the very real trauma suffered by all those affected.
It is understandable that some of those affected will be sceptical about the value of an apology such as this one.
As one Canberra woman, who was taken from her mother at birth puts it bluntly: “If I am to receive an apology I want it noted that no apology can repair the damage that has been done to my mother, me and my family. I have been refused a child’s right to be brought up by my own mother, in my own family, with my own religion and ethnicity recognised and understood. In fact my whole identity without my consent was taken from me and this can never be replaced.”
Another Canberran articulates the hidden grief of mothers whose babies were taken from them. He says: “Grief is the natural emotional response to loss. Mothers whose babies were taken away experience disenfranchised grief—a grief which is not openly acknowledged, socially acceptable or publicly mourned, and therefore appears to have no end. Normally after death there are rituals which assist to ease the pain of the bereaved. In disenfranchised grief, the rituals are absent—the mother is totally disempowered, blamed and given no right to grieve—she receives no validation of her loss; no cards, no flowers or expressions of sympathy.”
Mr Speaker, as the voice of this community, it is this parliament’s role to acknowledge and legitimise these experiences, to acknowledge, validate and respect the grief, to offer that belated sympathy, even if we cannot undo the past.
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